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IN THE 

Circuit and District Courts of the United States 
For the Southern District of Illinois 



PROCEEDINGS 



UPON THE OCCASION OF THE 
PRESENTATION OF THE PORTRAIT OF 



TO THE UNITED STATES COURTS 
AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 



On Odober Seventh, One Thousand 
Nine Hundred and Five 

BEFORE THE 

Honorables Francis E. Baker and Christian C. Kohlsaat, Circuit 
Judges, and the Honorables Sol. H. BetheaandJ Otis Humphrey, 
DistriB Judges, presiding. The Honorables James G. Jenkins, 
Circuit Judge, retired, and the Honorable John K. Richaras, 
Circuit Judge of the Sixth Circuit, were Sitting with the Court 






^^ 



//•. IV. Rokker 

Company 

Prest 

Springfitld 

Illinois 



Jpr^B^ntatintt KhhrtBB 



(Sottrrnor of Sllinoia 



May it Please the Honokable Judges: 

I have been requested by the bar of the Southern 
District of Illinois to move that this Honorable 
Court accept their tender of the portrait of the late 
Salmon P. Chase. In support of the motion, I desire 
to recite briefly a few interesting facts concerning 
this portrait. 

Mr. W. Cogswell was the artist. It was painted 
by him in 1867, at the request of Jay Cooke, of Phila- 
delphia. Mr. Cooke had been an admirer and the 
steadfast friend of the Chief Justice when he was 
the Secretary of the United States Treasury, and the 
Secretary had relied upon the judgment and invoked 
the assistance of Mr. Cooke in arranging for the 
extensive loans which were necessary during the 
Civil War. Financial reverses overtook Mr. Cooke, 
and this portrait was sold at auction at his 
home at Ogontz, Pa. It was purchased by a 

3 



colored man named James Wormly, then a 
proprietor of an hotel at Washington, D. C, 
who, out of gratitude for the services which 
the Chief Justice had rendered in defending the 
fugitive slave overtaken in his perilous flight along 
the underground railway, and for his unyielding 
advocacy of equal rights to all men, regardless of 
color or previous condition of servitude, hung this 
portrait in the rotunda of his hotel as a testimonial 
of his appreciation of what the Chief Justice had 
done for his race. 

James Wormly prized this portrait highly and left 
it, on his death, as a precious heirloom to his sons. 
The sons continued in their father's business until 
1893, when financial misfortunes overtook them. 
This portrait among other of their effects, was again 
sold at public auction. Again no wealthy friend of 
the former Secretary came forward to purchase it, 
and it was bid in by J. Archie Lewis, an attendant in 
the robing room of the Supreme Court at Wash- 
ington. 

If the Court please, on the death of the Honorable 
William J. Allen, Judge of the United States Court 
for the Southern District of Illinois, a few years ago, 
a number of lawyers of this bar suggested that his 
portrait should be procured and have a place in the 
court room which he had occupied. The matter was 
submitted to the bar, which resulted in the larger 

4 



undertaking of securing the portraits of a number 
of eminent judges who had presided in this court, 
and also that of Chief Justice Marshall. 

The committee procured the portraits, and on the 
2d of June, 1903, they were unveiled in this Court 
room with appropriate ceremonies. A number of 
distinguished gentlemen were present and delivered 
addresses to the Court on that occasion : 

Walter Q. Gresham, 

By Hon. Chas. W. Fairbanks, 

Vice President of United States. 
John Marshall, 

By Hon. C. C. Kohlsaat, 

Judge of United States Court for 
Northern District of Hlinois. 
David Davis, 

By Hon. Lawrence Weldon, 

Justice United States Court of Claims. 
Samuel H. Tbeat, 

By Hon. James A. Creighton, 
Judge 7tli Circuit of Illinois. 
Thomas Drummond, 

By Hon. John N. Jewett. 
of Chicago, Illinois. 
William Joshua Allen, 
By Hon. J. C. Allen, 
of Olney, Illinois. 

John McLean, 

By Mr. Logan Hay, 

of the Sangamon County Bar. 
Nathaniel Pope, 

By Gen. Alfred Orendorff, 

of the Sangamon County Bar. 
John Marshall Harlan, 

By Hon. Shelby M. Cullom, 

United States Senator from Illinois. 
5 



The motion on behalf of the Bar and the address 
in support of same was made by Mr. Philip Barton 
Warren, of the Sangamon County Bar. 

The portraits were accepted on behalf of the Court 
by the Honorable J Otis Humphrey, the Presiding 
Justice. 

It was a day which will long be remembered by 
the bar of this District. Following that precedent, 
the bar determined to procure the portrait of Chief 
Justice Chase. Judge Humphrey of this district 
undertook the task of procuring a portrait which 
had been approved by the Chief Justice in his 
life time. He went to Washington in search of in- 
formation regarding the portrait, the history of 
which I have related, and traced it with some diffi- 
culty to the home of Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lewis parted 
with it on condition that it should become the prop- 
erty of the people. 

The committee in charge of these exercises have 
prepared the following program: 

Salmon Portland Chase, 

By Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, 
of Ohio. 

Statesmanship and Politics, 

By Governor J. Frank Hanly, 
of Indiana. 

Eesponse, 

By Justice James G. Jenkins, 

United States Circuit Judge for the 7th Circuit, 
Retired. 



In ])elialf of the bar, I thank these distinguished 
gentlemen in advance for accepting the invitation 
and for their presence here today, and move, in 
order tliat their addresses may be preserved, that 
they be spread upon the records of this Court. 

Having related these facts, I move this Honor- 
able Court that the portrait be accepted and ordered 
hung in ])ublic view upon the walls of this court 
room and upon the walls of any other court room 
which may hereafter be occupied by this Honorable 
Court, so to remain while this Court shall endure. 



^almnn J^nrtlattii (Hhtmt 



Mnitrli BtattB ^enatar for ®t|in 



May it Please the Court : 

The career of Chief Justice Chase was too eventful 
and too intimately connected with the great duties of 
a great period in our country's history to be justly 
portrayed in a brief address such as is called for on 
an occasion of this character. 

Mere glimpses are all that can be taken of even the 
most important features of his life, while many minor 
events must be entirely ignored, which, under other 
circumstances, might be dwelt upon with both inter- 
est and propriety. 

Fortunately in that respect, what we are most 
concerned about here today is not his childhood, or 
his private life, domestic or professional, but his 
public life, and particularly that part of it which led 
up to and included the Chief Justiceship. 

He came of good stock, and had the good fortune 
to be born poor, and to be blessed with a powerful 

8 



physique, an attractive personality, a dignified pres- 
ence, a strong intellectual endowment, and such a 
predisposition to seriousness as to make frivolities 
of all kinds impossible. 

He was also fortunate in being identified with both 
New England and the West, for thus he acquired 
the culture and refinement of the one section, and the 
vigorous and independent thought and progressive 
activity of the other. 

He spent several years of his boyhood in the 
family of his uncle, Bishop Chase, of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, who was stationed during this 
period at Worthington and Cincinnati, Ohio. After 
this he became a student at Dartmouth College, 
where he was graduated in the classical course with 
that mental power of analysis and logical thought 
and expression which nothing can develop quite so 
well as a thorough study of the Latin and Greek 
languages. 

He next spent three years in Washington, during 
which period he read law under William Wirt, then 
Attorney General of the United States. 

The relation of student and preceptor seems, how- 
ever, to have been little more than nominal, since it 
was related by Mr, Chase that Mr. Wirt never 
asked him but one question about his studies. He 
also states that when he came to be examined for 
admission to the bar he found himself so illy pre- 

9 



pared that he passed with difficulty, and chiefly, as 
he always thought, because he informed Mr. Justice 
Cranch, who admitted him, that he intended to locate 
in the West. 

During his stay in Washington he had many 
advantages that compensated in some degree for 
this lack of preparation for the practice of his 
profession. 

He was on terms of social intimacy with Mr. 
Wirt's family, whose position was such that he was 
not only brought in contact with all the prominent 
men then in control of public affairs, but also with 
all the great questions with which they were at the 
time concerned. 

Being of a studious and serious turn of mind, with 
such experiences, and amid such surroundings, he 
naturally drifted into the study of the political 
problems of the day, so that when in 1830, at the 
age of 22 years, he opened a law office in Cincinnati, 
he was already almost as much occupied with affairs 
of State as about legal principles. 

He chose Cincinnati for his future home because 
at that time it was the largest and most flourishing 
city of the West, and on that account gave the most 
promise of opportunity to a young lawyer ambitious 
to achieve success and distinction. 

He did not foresee that the slavery question was 
soon to become acute, and that he was to entertain 

10 



views and take a position with respect to that insti- 
tution of such ultra character that a less hospitable 
community for him could scarcely have been found 
in any Northern State than that border city, situated 
on the line that divided the free from the slave 
States, was to become. 

If he had foreseen all this it probably would not 
have changed his course, for he was so constituted 
by nature that he might have felt that duty required 
him to station himself at that outpost as a sort of 
advance guard of the anti-slavery movement. 

For several years he labored industriously to gain 
a foothold in his profession without making any 
more than ordinary progress. 

His biographers record that during this period 
he had time for social functions, magazine arti- 
cles, some newspaper work, and, most important of 
all, for a revision and editing of the statutes of 
Ohio, which he published with a very able introduc- 
tion in the nature of an historical sketch of the State 
and its developments. Still, however, he forged 
ahead, not rapidly, nor brilliantly, but surely, con- 
stantly and substantially. 

His clients gradually increased in numbers and 
the work they brought him improved in quality until 
he had a very fair business, almost altogether of a 
commercial character, but his practice was still 

11 



modest, involving neither large amounts nor compli- 
cated questions, and his position at the bar, although 
respectable, was yet comparatively humble and 
uninfluential, when suddenly, unexpectedly and un- 
intentionally, he was drawn into the controversy 
about Slavery and was started on a public career 
in the course of which he quickly became a political 
leader and achieved much fame as a lawyer. 

The mobbing in 1836 of the Philanthropist, an 
Anti-Slavery Newspaper, published in Cincinnati 
by James G. Birney, aroused him, as it did thou- 
sands of others, to the intolerance of the slave spirit 
and the necessity of resisting its encroachments by 
protecting Free Speech and a Free Press if the 
rights of the white man, as well as the rights of the 
free colored man, were to be preserved. He at once 
took a pronounced stand as an anti-slavery man, 
although he was always careful, then and after- 
wards, until the Civil War, to declare and explain 
that he was not an abolitionist, and that he had no 
desire to change the Constitution or interfere with 
slavery in any way in the States where it was 
already established. 

Although most of the time ''out of line" he 
claimed to be a Whig until 1841, but professed to 
believe in the States Eights, Strict Construction 

12 



doctrine of the Jefferson School of Democracy, and 
tlius reconciled his attitude with respect to slavery 
in the States and his opposition to its extension be- 
yond the States by the contention that the States in 
their sovereign capacity had a right to authorize and 
protect the institution, although a great evil, if they 
saw fit to do so ; and that the States had this power 
because it belonged to sovereignty and had not been 
delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Gov- 
ernment ; and that because such power was not dele- 
gated to the General Government, it had no power to 
authorize, protect, or even continue the institution 
in any district, territory or jurisdiction over which 
it directly governed. 

Both his politics and his law were severely criti- 
cised, for they made it impossible for him to fully 
satisfy any party or faction of that time. 

He did not go far enough for the Abolitionists and 
went too far for both the "VVhigs and Democrats. One 
repudiated him because he was pro-slavery as to 
slavery in the States, and the other because he not 
only opposed the extension of slavery into the 
Territories but advocated its abolition in the District 
of Columbia, for which he is credited with drafting 
one of the earliest petitions presented to Congress. 
It naturally followed that he soon had trouble to 
know to what political party he belonged; a trouble 
that continued to plague him all his life and appar- 
ently led him to try in turn to belong to all of 

13 



them, but without finding satisfaction in any, not 
excepting those practically of his own creation. 

Thus we find him calling himself a Henry Clay 
National Republican in 1832, a Harrison Whig in 
1836, an out and out Whig in 1840, a Liberty man in 
1844, a Free Soiler in 1848, a Democrat in 1851, so 
enrolling himself in the Senate, a Liberty man 
again in 1852, a Republican in 1856, and afterward 
until it was foreseen that he had no chance against 
Grant to be nominated by the Republican party for 
the Presidency in 1868, then suddenly becoming a 
Democrat again, seeking the nomination by that 
party, and in that connection claiming that aside 
from slavery questions, so far as basic principles 
were concerned, he had been a Democrat all his life. 

On top of all this we find him writing to a friend 
shortly prior to the meeting of the Liberal Conven- 
tion that nominated Horace Greeley at Cincinnati 
in 1872, that if it should be thought that his nomina- 
tion would promote the interests of the country he 
would not refuse the use of his name, thus showing 
a willingness to change parties once more on the 
condition expressed. 

It is probably safe to say that he had membership 
in more political parties, with less enjoyment in any 
of them, and with less mutual obligation arising 
therefrom, than any other public man America has 
produced. 

14 



At any rate it was with this kind of zig-zag party 
affiliations he laid the foundations and built on them 
the claims on which he was elected to the Senate in 
eJanuary, 1849, by a fusion of the Democrats, Anti- 
Slavery Democrats, Democratic Free Soilers and 
Independent Free Soilers, and felt that he had a 
right to complain, as he did, because the Whigs, 
Anti-Slavery Whigs and Free Soil Whigs would 
not also vote for him. In making that complaint, he 
ignored the fact that it was charged and believed by 
the Whigs that his election was brought about by a 
bargain, which, among other things, provided that 
two contesting Democrats, enough to give that party 
a majority, were to be admitted to seats in the 
House. There was undoubtedly a clear understand- 
ing arrived at, but like some other men of more 
modern times, such deals appear not to have been 
offensive to him, when made in his own behalf, since 
thereby the praiseworthy result was reached of 
securing his services to the public. They were bad 
and to be execrated only when made by others, and 
in the interests of somebody else, whose services 
were not, in his opinion, so important. 

His complaint was not, however, without plausi- 
bility, for he at least had equal claims on all the 
parties and factions named, except the two Inde- 
pendent Free Soilers, to whom he really owed his 
election, since he had belonged to all, had repudiated 
all, and had been repudiated by all. 

15 



And yet, most of these party changes, perhaps all 
except that of 1868, came about naturally, and, from 
his standpoint, strange as it may appear, consist- 
ently also. His opposition to slavery being para- 
mount, and the Whig party failing and refusing to 
become an anti-slavery party, he was lukewarm and 
irregular in its support until the death of Harrison 
and the accession of Tyler, when he lost all hope of 
it ever meeting his views. He then openly deserted 
it and joined the Liberty party and at once devoted 
himself to its reorganization and upbuilding, which 
party, however, he in turn abandoned, and helped to 
disorganize to make way for the Free Soil Party of 
1848, which he actively helped to form by bringing 
about a fusion of Liberal Party men. Barnburners, 
Anti-Slavery Whigs, Anti-Slavery Democrats, and 
all other dissatisfied classes who could be gathered 
into the fold ; a combination of elements incongruous 
as to all questions except that of hostility to slavery, 
about which they had the most fiery zeal. This 
party, so constituted, nominated Martin Van Buren 
as their candidate for the Presidency, in a Conven- 
tion, over which Mr. Chase presided, and of which 
he was the dominating spirit, but they largely 
strengthened themselves and their cause by the 
ringing declarations of their platform, of which he 
was the chief author, for "Free Soil, Free Speech, 
Free Labor and Free Men." 



16 



What Chase evidently most wanted in connection 
with that Convention was the substance and not the 
shadow— the platform in preference to the candidate, 
for it was well known that the candidate had no 
chance of an election, and would therefore pass away 
with the campaign, while the principles enunciated 
would be educational, and would live to do service in 
the future. 

Thus it was that while manifesting instability, if 
not contempt, as to party ties and associations, by 
flitting out and in from one party to another, he was 
yet steadfastly, zealously and efficiently making 
continuous war on slavery, and all the while coming 
into ever closer affiliation and co-operation with the 
out-and-out Abolitionists; for while nominally 
working only as an anti-slavery man, he was largely 
aiding in the development of a radical Abolition 
sentiment. His progress in this respect was 
inevitable, for as the discussion proceeded he was 
necessarily more and more drawn into it— explain- 
ing, defending and advocating his views. 

All the while his horizon was widening, and he was 
becoming acquainted by correspondence and other- 
wise, with the leading anti-slavery men of all the 
other States, both East and West. This multiplied 
the demands upon him for an expression of his 
sentiments, and so during this period he wrote many 
articles for the newspapers and magazines, attended 



17 



political conventions, wrote platforms, and ad- 
dresses to the public, and made numerous speeches 
on all kinds of public occasions. Being a forcible 
and ready writer, and a logical and convincing 
speaker, although too deliberate to be magnetic, he 
was constantly in demand, and as constantly making 
valuable contributions to the general literature that 
was used against slavery by its enemies of all shades 
and degrees. 

Along with this growth of political prominence and 
influence before the public, there came to him, as a 
lawyer, a series of cases, all arising, in one form and 
another, under the Fugitive Slave Law, by which he 
was given repeated opportunities, which he well 
improved, of developing and presenting to the 
country the legal aspects of the controversy in a way 
that attracted universal attention to his cause and 
to himself as one of its ablest and most powerful 
exponents. 

He was not successful except on some technical 
points in any of these cases, and probably did not 
expect to be ; and in most, if not all of them, he was 
paid inadequate fees, if any at all; but he labored 
and strove in them with all the energy that confidence 
of success and the most ample compensation could 
inspire. He thoroughly and exhaustively briefed 
them, and raised and insisted upon every point that 
could be made, both technical and substantial. In one 

18 



of these cases that went to the Supreme Court of the 
United States, he artfully placed before the whole 
country, as well as the Court, all his constitutional 
and other arguments not only against Slavery, but 
also against a Fugitive Slave Law, and particularly 
against its application to any but the original thir- 
teen States, and therefore against its application to 
Ohio. 

He was overruled, as he must have expected he 
would be, but he was purposely addressing himself 
to the country as well as the Court, and had a confi- 
dence, that subsequent events vindicated, that he 
would eventually secure a verdict at the hands of his 
fellowmen that would right the whole system of 
wrong that he was combating. 

In the Senate he was out of harmony from first to 
last with both the Democrats and the Whigs. He at 
first insisted upon calling himself a Democrat, 
although the Democrats who were in the majority 
practically disowned him, and in the Committee 
assignments refused him any substantial recognition. 
This did not seem to either embarrass or handicap 
him. He had, in consequence of being practically 
relieved from Committee work, all the more time for 
the consideration of the slavery question, which was 

19 



then rapidly becoming more and more the all absorb- 
ing question of the hour. 

He had not been long in his seat until he found 
opportunity to speak on that subject. From that 
time until the end of his term he was the real leader 
of the anti-slavery forces of both the Senate and the 
House. They were few in number, but they were 
able and forceful men, who stood up manfully and 
inspiringiy for a sentiment which was then unpopular 
but which was soon to control the nation. 

His most notable efforts were made in opposition 
to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. He was overwhelm- 
ingly beaten when the vote was taken, but he had so 
crippled and weakened the measure in the popular 
mind, that Douglass soon realized that while he had 
won the day in Congress, he had lost it before the 
people, who had become so aroused that he quickly 
saw that the long predicted dissolution of the Whig 
Party and the revolt of the Free Democrats were at 
hand, and that a new party was forming that was 
destined to change the entire complexion of the 
political situation and bring to naught all he had 
gained. 

The debate was one of the most acrimonious and, 
measured by its far-reaching consequences, one of 
the most important that ever occurred in the Ameri- 
can Congress. 

Chase was the target for all the shafts of malice 
and ridicule, but through it all he bore himself with 

20 



dignity and serenity, and showed such sincerity, zeal 
and ability, that, notwithstanding his obnoxious 
views, he gained the friendship of most of his col- 
leagues and the respect of the whole country. His 
personal character was always upright, and now as 
he came to the end of a turbulent term in the Senate, 
where he had been disowned and in many ways 
slighted and mistreated by both parties, he saw, what 
he had probably long foreseen, a new party forming, 
of giant strength and high purpose, which he had 
done as much as any other man, if not more, to create, 
and of which he was an acknowledged leader. 

The Democrats being in control of the Ohio Legis- 
lature, took his place in the Senate away from him, 
and gave it to George E. Pugh. But instead of 
punishing and retiring him, as they designed, they 
only made the way open and easy for him to become, 
after a most spirited campaign that attracted the 
attention of the whole country, the first Eepublican 
Governor of Ohio, and as such a prominent candidate 
for the Presidency. 

©I|? Jpr^aib^nrg ttt lB5fi 

He was conscious of the work he had done in 
organizing the new party, and realized that he had 
greatly strengthened it by leading it to its first great 
victory in the third State of the Union, as Ohio then 
was, while in New York and Pennsylvania his party 
associates had failed. With his strong mental 

21 



powers, long experience in public life, and famil- 
iarity with all the public affairs and questions to be 
dealt with, it was but natural that under the circum- 
stances, he should expect the honor of leading his 
party, as its candidate for the Presidency, in its first 
great national contest, and that he should experience 
keen disappointment when he saw his claims rejected 
and the honor conferred on a younger man, who had 
no special claims, except the popularity of an idol of 
the hour, who had won his prominence and the public 
favor not by participation in the fierce struggles and 
educational experiences through which the country 
had been passing, but by the success of a number 
of daring and spectacular explorations. He was 
solaced, however, by the thought that he was yet a 
young man, who could wait and grow with his party, 
and become its candidate later when the chances of 
success were more certain. He was in a good position 
for such a program. 

(^mnnat of (iljui 

But aside from all such considerations he was 
naturally ambitious to make a good Governor, and 
such he was. His administration was conducted on a 
high plane, and in all respects he showed himself a 
capable and efficient Executive. Throughout his two 
terms the slavery question, through repeated Fugi- 
tive Slave Law cases, was almost constantly occupy- 
ing public attention. As Chief Executive of the State 

22 



he now had an official responsibility for the due 
execution of the laws and the process of the Courts, 
and had great difficulty to meet the requirements of 
public sentiment and avoid a conflict with national 
authority. While in some instances severely criti- 
cised he appears with respect to all these delicate and 
troublesome controversies to have fairly and faith- 
fully performed his duty. At any rate, when he 
retired from his office in January, 1860, his party 
was greatly strengthened, and he had gained in 
general estimation as a man of pronounced convic- 
tions, honorable purposes and high qualifications for 
the public service. This was emphasized by a 
re-election to the Senate for the term commencing 
March 4th, 1861. 

Thus it came to pass that in 1860 he ranked 
officially and personally, and deservedly so, with the 
foremost men of the nation. He seemed to have just 
and superior claims upon his party for its highest 
honor, and with a frankness amounting almost to 
immodesty— he set about securing it. 

Prmbfitttal QJatiJiiJialP IBBII 

He had friends in all sections of the country, and 
he called upon them to advocate and advance his 
cause. He appeared to think only Seward and Bates 
formidable rivals, and easily satisfied himself that 
his claims were superior to theirs, but his friends in 

23 



different parts of the country, especially in his own 
State, which seems to have had factional divisions 
and differences then as well as in later years, soon 
found that while all acknowledged his abilities, gen- 
eral qualifications and high personal character, yet 
there was a strong feeling in many quarters of dis- 
trust as to his views on the tariff and other questions 
that Republicans deemed of vital importance. This 
was due not so much to any statements he had made 
on these subjects, for he had never talked or written 
very much except about slavery, as to his oft re- 
peated insistence and reiterated declarations from 
time to time preceding the organization of the Repub- 
can party, that he was a Democrat, and that he 
adhered to all the principles of that party, except 
those with respect to slavery. 

In Ohio there was added a lingering resentment 
among many of the old Whig leaders for his 
apparently vacillating course as a party man, and 
especially for his combination with the Democrats to 
secure his election to the Senate in 1849. 

Some of his friends were frank enough to tell him 
that his chances were not promising, but he listened 
more to those who told him what he wanted to hear, 
and, notwithstanding a divided delegation from his 
own State, and but few delegates from other States 
who favored him as their first choice, he industriously 
and optimistically continued his canvass until the 

24 



Convention met, and, giving him only forty-nine 
votes, dashed his hopes to the ground by the nomina- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln. 

Much fault has been found with him for the 
manner in which he personally conducted his cam- 
paign for this nomination. He seems to have pro- 
ceeded on the theory that " If he wanted the office he 
should ask for it," and to have not only asked but 
also in many instances to have insisted upon his right 
to support. 

His correspondence teems with an array of his 
claims, and with arguments in support of them, and 
with advantageous comparisions of them with the 
claims of others, and with directions and suggestions 
to his friends how to advance his interests. 

It is to be regretted that a man of such lofty char- 
acter, such high ability, and such long experience 
with men and public affairs, could have shown so 
little regard for propriety with respect to such a 
matter. 

The small vote he received in the Convention was 
probably due in some degree at least to the offense he 
gave in this way, for the sturdy, hard-headed men of 
that heroic time naturally disliked such self-seeking 
with respect to an office the duties and responsibili- 
ties of which were so grave that any man might well 
hesitate to assume them even when invited to do so. 

25 



In all other respects his canvass was free from 
criticism. It was honest; there was no trickery 
attempted in connection with it— no promises were 
given, no bargains were made, no money was used. 
When it was over he had nothing to regret except 
defeat, and he took that gracefully. He gave Mr. 
Lincoln hearty support, and was undoubtedly truly 
rejoiced by his election, for he saw in it the triumph 
of the principles for which he had been all his life 
contending, and the beginning of the end of slavery 
in the States as well as elsewhere. 

Mr. Lincoln at the time of his election was under- 
estimated by almost everybody, except those whom 
he was wont to call the plain, common people. They 
seemed to know him and his greatness by intuition, 
as it were. They had confidence in his sound common 
sense, and loved him for his homely manners, and 
simple, straightforward methods. Tliej^ felt from 
the day of his nomination that he would be elected; 
and when he was elected, and the clouds began to 
gather, and one State after another seceded, there 
never came an hour when they did not implicitly 
rely on him to safely pilot them through whatever 
storms might come. He had their confidence from 
the first, and he held it to the last. They never 
wavered either in their devotion to his leadership, or 

26 



in their faith that he would eventually save the 
Union. 

From the very beginning they gave him also his 
rightful place as the real leader, who outranked all 
his associates in public life, not only because he was 
President, but also, and more particularly, because 
of his natural endowments and qualities of mind and 
heart. 

But it was different with some of the leaders. 
Many of them were slow to acquire a just conception 
of his character and abilities. They never thought 
of him seriously in connection with the Presidency 
until he was practically nominated, and they did not 
think of him then, except as a sort of accidental 
compromise, who was not well qualified for the 
position. They regarded him as lacking not only the 
culture and refinement, but also the practical experi- 
ence with public affairs that was essential to their 
succecssful administration. 

He came to the front so suddenly and unexpectedly 
that he had gone ahead of them and had been named 
by his party for its leader before they realized that 
they were being supplanted. His administration 
was organized and fairly under way before they be- 
gan to recognize their true relation to him. 

This was particularly true of Seward and Chase, 
who had been the chief, and as they long thought, 

27 



almost the exclusive rivals, for the honors of party 
leadership. 

Both were invited to take seats in the Cabinet, and 
each accepted with the idea that, in addition to his 
own Department, he would be expected to bear, in 
large degree, the burdens of all the other Depart- 
ments. Each seemed to think the country would look 
to him rather than to Mr, Lincoln for the shaping of 
the policies to be pursued. There was some excuse 
for this in the fact that each had his ardent friends 
and admirers who encouraged the idea, and because 
some of the leading newspapers seemed to think that 
Lincoln had called them into his counsels from con- 
sciousness of his deficiencies, and in recognition of 
their superior fitness for the work he had been called 
to perform. 

This thought— of the broader and more important 
duty of supervising the whole administration, seems 
for a time to have so occupied Chase 's mind, that he 
did not at first realize, and perhaps never fully, that 
his legitimate field at the head of the Treasury 
Department was full of duties of the highest import- 
ance and the amplest opportunities for conspicuous 
service. 

During all the time he was a member of the! 
Cabinet, but particularly during the first months, he 
gave much volunteer attention to duties outside his 
department, particularly to those relating to the War 

28 



Department; the organization of the army and the 
planning and conducting of campaigns; he was an 
inveterate letter writer, and was constantly giving 
advice and making suggestions to apparently every 
one who would listen, including commanding officers 
in the field. 

Gradually, however, he came to more clearly 
understand that his own duties were enough, if 
properly looked after, to tax him to the utmost, and 
in time he came also to realize that Mr. Lincoln was 
the head of his own Administration, and the final 
arbiter of all controverted questions. 

By reason of this disposition and habit his work in 
the Cabinet was not so good as it might have been if 
he had concentrated his efforts in his own Depart- 
ment and had been properly alive from the outset to 
the seriousness of the situation he was called upon to 
meet. His fault in this latter respect was, however, 
common to all, for the war in its magnitude and 
duration exceeded all expectations, and its demands 
multiplied with such frightful rapidity as to upset 
all calculations, thus making it well nigh impossible 
for him to keep pace with its growing requirements, 
and secure from Congress the authority and help 
necessary to enable him to carry out such plans as he 
formulated; and yet, notwithstanding all this, it 
would be difficult to exaggerate what he accom- 
plished. 

29 



He found his Department disorganized, but in the 
midst of the excitements of the hour and the exacting 
duties of a more important nature that fell upon him, 
he thoroughly re-organized it, introducing many 
reforms that greatly increased its efficiency. He 
found the Government without funds or credit, and 
without adequate revenues to meet ordinary expendi- 
tures in time of peace, but he surmounted all such 
obstacles and made it successfully respond to the 
exigencies of war. 

With the necessity suddenly precipitated of pro- 
viding for great armies and navies, and equipping 
and maintaining them, he would have had a hard task 
under the most favorable circumstances, but it was 
increased almost beyond the power of description by 
an empty Treasury, a startling deficit, an impaired 
credit, an inadequate revenue, and eleven States in 
rebellion, with tens of thousands of copperhead 
sympathizers in every loyal State critcising and 
actively opposing in every way, short of overt acts 
of treason, every step he took or tried to take. 

He had all the help that able men in Congress and 
outside could give him by advice, and the suggestion 
of plans and methods, and ways and means, but after 
all he was the responsible official, whose duty it was 
to hear all, weigh all, and decide which plan of all the 
many suggested should be adopted, and then take 
upon himself the responsibility of recommending it 
and advocating it before the country and before the 

30 



Congress, and if the necessary authority could be 
secured, executing it. 

His difficulties were further increased by the fact 
that the Rex3ublican Party was then new to power, 
and its members in public life had not yet learned to 
work in harmony. Many of them were strong and 
aggressive men who were slow to adopt the views of 
others with which they did not fully coincide. 

In consequence his recommendations were sub- 
jected to the keenest scrutiny and criticism from 
party associates, as well as opponents, and not infre- 
quently they were materially modified or changed 
before they received statutory sanction, and in some 
instances entirely rejected. 

In all these experiences his high personal character 
and well recognized ability were of incalculable value 
to him and his country. Whatever else might be 
said, nobody ever questioned the integrity of his 
purpose, the probity of his action, or the sincerity of 
his arguments. 

While in the light of subsequent events it is seen 
that much that he did might have been done better, 
yet when the circumstances and the lack of light and 
precedent under which he acted are fairly measured 
it is almost incredible that he did so well. 

When we recall that great conflict we are apt to 
think only of its ''pomp and circumstance" — of the 
deeds of heroism and daring— of the army and the 

31 



navy— of the flying flags and the n ..rching columns— 
of the services and sacrifices of those who fought and 
died— forgetting that less fascinating but indispens- 
able service, and the noble men who rendered it, of 
supplying "the sinews of war," without which all 

else would have been in vain. 

His labors in this behalf were incessant and her- 
culean. On this occasion details are impossible. 
Suffice it to say that by every kind of taxation that 
could be lawfully devised he swelled the revenues to 
the full limit at which it was thought such burdens 
could be borne, and by every kind of security, certifi- 
cates, notes and obligations that he could issue and 
sell or in any way use, he drew advance drafts upon 
the Nation's resources. 

He met with many disappointments and discour- 
agements, but he unflaggingly persevered, and finally 
succeeded, approximately, to the full measure that 
success was possible. 

There were numerous transactions that might well 
be mentioned, because of the illustration they afford 
of the services he rendered, the difficulties he encoun- 
tered, and of the kind of labor and effort he was 
constantly putting forth with members of Congress, 
bankers, editors and others to advance and uphold 
his views, develop and educate public sentiment, and 
secure needed legislation and support; but all are 
necessarily passed over, that some mention may be 

32 



made of two subju,>4s, with which he was so identified 
that even the briefest sketch of his public services 
should include some special reference to them. 

They were the issue of legal tender notes, herein- 
after discussed in connection with the legal tender 
cases, and the establishment of the National Banking 
System, involving, as it did, the extinction of State 
Banks of issue. 

ullyp National banking B^BUm 

The establishment of a uniform National Banking 
System was, like most great measures, of gradual 
development. 

It was much discussed and many minds contributed 
to the working out of the details, but Chase seems to 
have a pretty clear claim to its general authorship. 

Upon him more directly than anybody else was 
impressed the necessity for some kind of reform in 
that respect, for while each citizen was experiencing 
difficulty in his dealings with individual banks, he 
was compelled to deal with practically all of them, 
and, therefore, felt, in a consolidated form, the com- 
bined disadvantages that others suffered in detail. 

In view of what we now enjoy, and the ease with 
which, looking backward, it appears that it should 
have been brought about it seems incredible that an 



33 



intelligent people should have so long suffered the 
inconveniences of the old System. 

It can be accounted for only from the fact that for 
the Government in a general way, and for the people 
in a commercial and general business sense, that was 
the day of small things, and it was tolerated because 
they were accustomed to it, and because there was a 
natural aversion, especially on the part of the banks, 
to making radical changes that were necessarily in 
some degree of an experimental character. 

But finally there came a precipitating cause, and 
the contest was inaugurated to substitute something 
better. The case was a plain one, but resistance was 
stubborn. 

Aside from the universal and almost unbearable 
inconvenience of doing business with a currency 
that had no uniformity of issue, appearance, or 
value ; and which had no proper safeguards against 
counterfeits and forgeries, was the fact that it was 
not possible for such a discredited and unsatisfactory 
System to render the Government much substantial 
help in placing its loans or in conducting any of its 
important fiscal transactions. 

Chase saw clearly, and from the first, that such a 
System could not co-exist with a uniform national 
system such as he contemplated, and that the existing 
State Institutions would not surrender their charters, 
and take new ones under an Act of Congress, unless 

34 



they were offered more substantial advantages than 
the Government should be required to give, or 
instead were deprived of the privilege of issuing 
their own notes, and that the best way to solve the 
problem was to tax their issues out of existence. 

It was a hard matter to bring others to agree with 
him. The opposing banks commanded in the aggre- 
gate a tremendous influence, and with the aid of 
doubting Congressmen and newspapers they long 
delayed, and finally so crippled the first Act that was 
passed, that it failed to provide an acceptable and 
successful plan, largely because it left the State issues 
untouched. 

It continued so until the law was so amended as to 
embrace practically all the recommendations Chase 
had made and insisted upon, including a tax of ten 
per cent, on the issues of State Banks. This did not 
happen until he had quit the Treasury Department, 
but it was his plan and his work, consummated, that 
gave us freedom from the worst banking system that 
could be well imagined, and substituted therefor one 
of the best any country has ever enjoyed. It was a 
work of high character and of enduring benefit to the 
whole country. It was the crowning act of his admin- 
istration of the Treasury Department, if not of his 
whole life, and, coupled with his other successes, 
entitles him to rank, after Hamilton, who has had no 
equal, with Gallatin and Sherman, and the other 
great Secretaries who have held that high office. 

35 



^lattona to Mr. Slittrnln 

It was unfortunate for his influence then and his 
reputation now that at times he showed less satisfac- 
tion with his position and exhibited less cordial good- 
will in his relations to Mr. Lincoln than he should. 
Personal disappointment was probably the chief 
cause. From his first appearance in public life he 
was talked about for the Presidency, and almost from 
the beginning he talked about and for himself in that 
connection. Barring the indelicacy manifested, there 
was no impropriety in such talk until after he 
accepted a seat in the Cabinet. It was different after 
that, for while there was all the time more or less 
opposition cropping out to the renomination of Mr. 
Lincoln, yet there was never at any time enough to 
justify a member of his political household, who had 
been part of his administration and policies, in the 
encouragement of that opposition, particularly for 
his own benefit. That Chase was a passive candidate 
during all the time he was in the Cabinet and a good 
part of the time an active candidate, cannot be 
doubted. His many letters and diary entries show 
this ; not so much by his open advocacy of his claims 
as by criticisms of Mr. Lincoln and his manner of 
conducting the public business and the general 
encouragement he was giving and evidently intend- 
ing to give to the opposition sentiment. 

He may not have realized fully the character of 
record he was making in this respect, for he was no 



doubt somewhat blinded by the fact that he never 
could quite outgrow the idea that Lincoln did not 
deserve to be put ahead of him in 1860, and that the 
country would surely sometime learn its mistake and 
right the wrong. In addition he had a conceit that 
he was of greater importance than he was getting 
credit for at the hands of the President, and that 
when he and the President differed about anything in 
his department the President should yield, as he 
always did, except in a few instances when his sense 
of duty and responsibility prevented. At such times 
he was especially liable to say and do peevish and 
annoying things. On a number of such occasions he 
went so far as to tender his resignation, accompanied 
each time with a letter expressing a deep sense of 
humility but with an air of injured innocence that he 
no doubt keenly felt. Notwithstanding the trial it 
must have been for Mr. Lincoln to do so, he, each 
time, with singular patience, that only the good of 
his country could have prompted, not only refused 
acceptance, but apparently placed himself under 
renewed obligations by insisting that he should 
remain at his post. 

Naturally this was calculated to cause Chase to 
more and more regard himself as indispensable, until 
finally, June 30th, 1864, on account of new differences 
connected with the appointment of an Assistant 
United States Treasurer at New York, he made the 
mistake of tendering his resignation once too often. 

37 



Tkis time Mr. Lincoln promptly, and to Mr. Chase's 
great surprise and chagrin, accepted it and clinched 
the matter by immediately appointing his successor. 

He was thus suddenly left in a pitiable plight so 
far as his personal political fortunes were concerned, 
and but for the uncommon generosity of Mr. Lincoln, 
he vv^ould have so remained. 

Mr. Lincoln had been renominated, and the vic- 
tories of Grant and Sherman were every day 
strengthening his Party and his chances of election. 

All thoughtful men could see that the end of the 
war could not be much longer deferred, and that, 
with victory assured and Mr. Lincoln re-elected, 
there was renewed strength with continuance in 
power ahead for the Republican party. It was a bad 
time for a man who had sustained the relations he 
had to the Party, and the war, and the administra- 
tion, to drop out of the ranks and get out of touch 
with events; but there he was, "outside the breast- 
works, ' ' and nobody to blame but himself. 

It was a hard fate that seemed to have befallen him ; 
and such it would have been if almost anybody but 
Mr. Lincoln had been President, for most men would 
have left him helpless in his self-imposed humiliation. 
But Mr. Lincoln was a most remarkable man. He 
was enough like other men to enjoy, no doubt, the 
discomfiture Chase had brought on himself, but 

38 



enough unlike other men to magnanimously overlook 
his weaknesses and offenses when public duty so 
required. 

Accordingly, remembering only his long and faith- 
ful services and his high general and special qualifi- 
cations for the place, he made him Chief Justice. 

From the date of his resignation until December, 
when he was appointed, were probably his bitterest 
days. 

He had nothing to do, and no prospect. He made 
an effort, or at least his friends did, to secure his 
nomination for Congress from his old Cincinnati 
District, but so signally failed as to give painful 
evidence that he was not only out of office and out of 
power, but also out of favor. He was almost out of 
hoi^e also when Chief Justice Taney died. He was 
conscious that he had no claim on Mr. Lincoln for 
that or any other place, not alone because he had 
petulantly deserted him at a critical moment, but also 
and more particularly because in his vexation of 
spirit he had said some very unkind things of him, 
but he did not hesitate to allow his friends to urge 
him for that high honor, and, notwithstanding many 
protests, Mr. Lincoln gave it to him. 

It would be hard to recall an instance of greater 
magnanimity than was thus shown by Mr. Lincoln. 

39 



It was magnanimous because, while in most respects 
Mr. Chase 's qualifications for the position were high, 
they were not of such exceptional character as to 
single him out above all other men for the place; 
certainly not if we consider only his experience at the 
bar, for while the first six years of his life in Cincin- 
nati were devoted to the practice of his profession, 
yet, like the same period with other beginners, they 
were not very busy years. He had no exceptional 
successes. His progress was satisfactory, and prob- 
ably all that should have been expected, but there was 
nothing extraordinary to forecast for him the great 
honor of the Chief Justiceship. 

During the following thirteen years, until he was 
elected to the Senate, his time was so occupied with 
political demands that he did not have much oppor- 
tunity for professional work, and what time he did 
devote to his law practice was taken up very largely 
with Fugitive Slave Law cases, aside from which 
there is no record of any case or employment that he 
had during all those nineteen years, from 1830, when 
he located in Cincinnati, until 1849, when he was 
elected to the Senate, that was of anything more than 
passing importance. During all that time, he prob- 
ably never had any single employment of sufficient 
importance to bring him a fee of so much as $1,000. 

It is probable that in all that time he never had a 
X^atent case, or an admiralty case, or any occasion to 

40 



make any study whatever of international law, and 
yet at that point virtually ended not only his career 
as a practicing lawyer, but also his study of the 
science of the law except as an incident of his public 
services. 

During the next six years— until 1855— he was a 
member of the Senate, and devoted all his time to his 
public duties and to public questions and affairs. He 
was next, for four years, Governor of Ohio, and then 
came the national campaign of 1860, the election of 
Mr. Lincoln and the Secretaryship in his Cabinet, 
which continued until his resignation shortly before 
he was appointed Chief Justice. 

And yet he was, all things considered, probably the 
best qualified of all who were mentioned for the place. 
His limited experience at the bar was not without 
precedents. Neither Jay nor Marshall had any very 
considerable experience of that character. 

Both of them, like Chase, were prepared for their 
great work more by their public services and studies 
as statesmen, than by the general study of the law 
and the trial of cases in the courts. It was much the 
same with Taney. He had a larger experience as a 
practitioner, and was Attorney-General, but his 
appointment was due more to his general public 
services than his professional achievements, although 
they were highly creditable and his standing as a 
lawyer was good. 

41 



Jay was intimately identified with the formative 
stages of our Governmental institutions, and in that 
way was familiar from their very origin with the 
public questions it was thought might arise for de- 
cision ; and Marshall, a soldier of the Kevolution and 
a careful student of the great purposes and results of 
that struggle was thereby equipped for not only his 
distinguished political career, but also for the great 
work for which the American people owe him a debt 
of everlasting gratitude, of so interpreting the Con- 
stitution as to breathe into it, with the doctrine of 
implied powers, that life, flexibility and adaptability 
to all our exigencies and requirements, that have 
made it, not only a veritable sheet anchor of safety 
for us, but also the marvel of the statesmen of the 
world. 

With Chase, as with his illustrious predecessors, it 
was his long, varied and important public services 
rather than his professional labors, that prepared 
him for the Chief Justiceship and secured him the 
appointment. They were of a character that broad- 
ened his views by compelling a study of the Constitu- 
tion and the foundation principles of our Government 
in connection with their practical application. 

Mr. Lincoln not only understood and appreciated 
this, but he foresaw, and no doubt had much anxious 
concern on that account, that, after the restoration of 
peace, all the great transactions and achievements of 
his Administration would have to run the gauntlet of 

42 



the Courts. The abolition of slavery, the status of 
the freedmen, the status of the seceding States, the 
status of their inhabitants— the leaders who had 
brought about the war, and the masses of the people 
who had simply followed them, the confiscation of 
property, all the great war measures that Congress 
had enacted, including the legal tender acts, he knew 
must in the order of events sooner or later come 
before the Supreme Court for final adjudication. 

It was natural to conclude that no man was so well 
qualified to deal intelligently and satisfactorily with 
these questions as he who, in addition to having good 
general qualifications, had been a capable and respon- 
sible participator in all that gave rise to those ques- 
tions. 

There were many other great lawyers, but there 
was no other lawyer of equal ability who had sus- 
tained such a relation to these subjects. 

Mr. Lincoln had a right to expect that with Chase 
Chief Justice the fruits of the war, in so far as he 
might have occasion to deal with them, would be 
secure, and this doubtless turned the scales in his 
favor. 

In large measure he met every just and reasonable 
expectation. In so far as he failed to do so, it was 
generally charged, whether rightfully or not, to his 
ambition to be President, which he should have put 

43 



away forever on his accession to the Bench, but which 
he appears to have indulged until his very last days. 

This is particularly true of his failure to bring 
Jefferson Davis to trial; and with respect to his 
rulings in the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson ; and 
his opinions in the Legal Tender cases. 

Most men are now agreed that he acted wisely as 
to Davis, and that he ruled honestly and in most cases 
correctly on the trial of Johnson. 

aIJ|? ICfgal ^mhn Qlaaps 

As to the Legal Tender cases he was at the time 
and has been ever since much censured, aside from 
the merits of the controversy, on the ground that he 
tried to undo on the Bench what he did, or at least was 
largely responsible for, as Secretary. No complete 
defense against this charge can be made, but the case 
against him is not so bad as generally represented, 
for, while finally assenting to such legislation, and 
from time to time as occasion required availing him- 
self of its provisions, he was at first opposed to the 
step on the ground of policy and from doubt as to the 
power, and at last reluctantly yielded his objections 
rather than his opinions, only when the necessities of 
the Government seemed to imperatively so demand, 
and when Congress had fully determined to resort to 
the measure anyhow. 

44 



For him to have longer opposed would have been 
futile to prevent it, and could not have had any other 
effect than to discredit the notes when issued, breed 
discord, and put him at cross purposes with men, as 
competent to judge as he, with whom it was his duty 
to co-operate in every way he could to accomplish the 
great purpose all alike had in view of preserving the 
Union. 

The situation was so unlike anything with which we 
are to-day familiar, that it is not easy to recall it. 

Instead of the annual revenues of the Government 
aggregating the abundant and almost incomprehen- 
sible sum of seven hundred millions of dollars, as 
they do to-day, they amounted then from all sources 
to less than fifty millions of dollars. 

Instead of two per cent, bonds selling readily in 
wholesale quantities, as they do to-day at a premium, 
six per cent, bonds were sold only with difficulty, and 
in dribbling amounts at a ruinous discount. 

In lieu of a national paper currency, good every- 
where as the gold itself, we had only an inadequate 
suppply of notes of uncertain and varying value, 
subject to no regulation or provision for their re- 
demption in gold, except such as was imperfectly 
provided by the different States. 

Few saw and appreciated until the second year of 
the war in what a gigantic struggle we were involved, 
and how stupendous must be the financial operations 

45 



and provisions of the Government to meet its require- 
ments. 

For this reason no comprehensive or well consid- 
ered plans were adopted at the start, as foresight of 
what was coming would have suggested, but on the 
contrary mere temporary expedients, such as the sale 
of bonds in comparatively small amounts, and to run 
for short periods, demand loans, interest and non- 
interest bearing Treasury certificates and notes, 
demand notes, and whatever form of obligation could 
be utilized for the time being were resorted to, and 
relied upon to tide over what it was hoped and 
believed would be, although a most severe, yet only a 
temporary emergency. 

As the war progressed and we met with reverses in 
the field, that indicated it would be prolonged, specie 
payments were suspended, and the national credit 
became more and more strained and impaired. 

In consequence it became practically impossible to 
longer raise by such methods the necessasry funds 
with which to conduct the Government and prosecute 
the war, or even to transact satisfactorily the private 
business of the country. 

The point was finally reached where the people 
must come to the financial help of the Treasury, or 
the Union must perish. 

Chase saw as well as others that the law of the case 

was Necessity, but^he did not yield without an effort 

46 



to have attached as a condition, provision for a 
uniform National Banking System. The condition 
was not accepted, but was provided for later, and 
long before the legal tender cases arose. 

Whatever else may be said about the legal tender 
clause, it is a fact of history that the effect for good 
on the Union cause was instantaneous and immeas- 
ureable. If it was a forced loan from the people, they 
gladly made it. If it was a hardship on anybody, it 
was not complained of by any friend of the Union. It 
gave confidence and imparted courage, and from that 
moment success was assured, not only for the Union 
cause, but for everybody connected with it, and 
especially for Chase himself, for without it his ad- 
ministration of the Treasury Department would have 
been a dismal and mortifying failure. 

Such a measure, arising from such a necessity, and 
accomplishing such results, was as sacred as the 
cause it subserved, and, aside from the wholesale 
disasters involved, it never should have been called 
in question by anybody, especially not by anyone who 
had the slightest responsibility for its enactment, and 
least of all by a personal or official beneficiary. 

It is both impossible and unnecessary, if not inap- 
propriate, to here discuss the legal propositions 
involved in the legal tender cases, but, on the other 
hand, it is both appropriate and essential to the com- 
pleteness of these remarks to speak of Chief Justice 
Chase's attitude with respect to them. 

47 



No one can make a better defense for him than he 
made for himself. 

In Hepburn vs. Griswold, anticipating the criti- 
cisms he knew must follow his decision that the legal 
tender clause was unconstitutional as to debts pre- 
viously contracted, he said, manifestly by way of 
attempted personal justification: 

"It is not surprising that amid the tumult of 
the late Civil War, and under the influence of appre- 
hensions for the safety of the Republic almost 
universal, different views, never before entertained 
by American statesmen or jurists, were adopted by 
many. The time was not favorable to considerate 
reflection upon the constitutional limits of legislative 
or executive authority. If power was assumed from 
patriotic motives, the assumption found ready justi- 
fication in patriotic hearts. Many who doubted 
yielded their doubts; many who did not doubt were 
silent. Some who were strongly averse to making 
government notes a legal tender felt themselves con- 
strained to acquiesce in the views of the advocates of 
the measure. Not a few who then insisted upon its 
necessity, or acquiesced in that view, have, since the 
return of peace, and under the influence of the 
calmer time, reconsidered their conclusions, and now 
concur in those which we have just announced. These 
conclusions seem to us to be fully sanctioned by the 
letter and spirit of the Constitution." 

In the Legal Tender Cases he amplified this some- 
what, but without adding to its strength. 

His opinions in these cases were in dignified style 
and, from his point of view, very able ; but there was 



then and still is, and perhaps always will be, much 
difference of opinion as to their merit. 

In all other respects his work as Chief Justice is 
now universally considered highly creditable— some 
of it particularly so— especially his opinion in Texas 
vs. ^^Hiite, which he regarded with great pride and 
satisfaction as a sort of Culminating fruit of his 
life's labor. His opinions were usually brief and 
always clear and strong. They cover almost every 
phase of the litigation growing out of the Civil War 
and the reconstruction acts that followed, and all the 
decisions of the Court, while he presided, remain un- 
questioned, except, inferentially, the constitutional- 
ity of the income tax. 

He died May 7, 1873, in the sixty-sixth year of his 
age, after only eight years of service on the Bench ; 
but they were years of great anxiety to the American 
people, for, during all that time, the country 's destiny 
was in a large measure in the hands of the Supreme 
Court. On its decisions de^Dended the issues of the 
war— w^hether to be upheld and made secure or over- 
thrown and brought to naught. The Court was equal 
to all requirements and did its part so splendidly and 
brilliantly of the great work of regeneration and 
preservation that Chase and his associates deserve to 
stand— and do— in public esteem and gratitude next 
after Marshall and his associates. The one dealt with 
the construction of our government, the other with 
its reconstruction. The labors of both were vital. 

49 



If he had been content to devote himself to his 
judicial work exclusively, he would have been spared 
much that was disagreeable, and his fame would have 
been brighter than it is. 

All his life, until his last two years, he had robust 
health, unlimited energy, and an almost uncontroll- 
able disposition to participate in the general conduct 
of public affairs. 

In consequence, while Chief Justice he was in what 
was regarded as a sort of intermeddling way, con- 
stantly giving attention to questions that belonged to 
Congress and other departments of government, and 
was from time to time freely offering advice and 
making suggestions as to legislative enactments and 
governmental policies ; but, more unfortunately still, 
he was all the while listening to the suggestions of 
unwise friends and mere flatterers about the Presi- 
dency. Much work was done for him with his knowl- 
edge and approval to secure the Republican nomina- 
tion in 1868, but early in that year, seeing there was 
an irresistible sentiment in favor of General Grant, 
he withdrew himself from the race. If he had 
remained out there would have been but little criti- 
cism, but he was scarcely out of the Eepublican race 
until he was entered for the Democratic. While the 
impeachment trial of President Johnson was yet in 
progress he signified a willingness to become the 
Democratic candidate, and set forth in letters to his 
friends that inasmuch as the slavery questions had 

50 



all been settled there was nothing in his political 
beliefs inconsistent with the principles of Democracy 
in which he had always been a believer. For a time 
there seemed strong probability that he would be the 
Democratic nominee. But it is familiar history that 
before his name could be presented the Convention 
was stampeded to Governor Seymour. Naturally 
there were charges that he was influenced, on account 
of his Presidential candidacy, by political considera- 
tions, and in this way he was shorn of much of the 
dignity, confidence and influence that rightfully be- 
longed to him in his high office. He suffered in this 
way, not only as Chief Justice, but also as a man. 
This is especially true of his candidacy in 1868 for 
the nomination first by the one party and then by the 
other, for at that time there was such a radical differ- 
ence between the parties, and so much bitterness of 
feeling, that it was incomprehensible to the average 
mind how any honorable man could so lightly, and 
with such apparent equal satisfaction to himself, 
belong to first the one and then the other, and with 
like zeal seek, or at least be willing to accept, the 
honors of both. 

The explanation is in the fact that it was the weak- 
ness of a strong man. He was so conscious of his 
mental powers and of his qualifications by reason of 
his long public service, to make a capable and efficient 
Chief Magistrate, that it was easy for him to think 
his claims for such recognition better than those of 

51 



others; especially others who had been differently 
trained, as Grant had been, and, therefore, to believe 
that his friends were right in their judgment that 
he was, for just reasons, the people's choice, and 
that it was his duty to his country, as well as to them, 
to become their candidate. 

With all his faculty for measures he had but little 
for men. He was himself so simple-minded, truthful 
and straight-forward in his dealings with others that 
he seemed incapable of understanding how untruthful 
and deceitful others were capable of being in their 
dealings with him, especially if their pretensions 
were in accord with his own views and desires. 

As time passes these features of his career will 
fade out of sight and be forgotten. Already he has 
taken his proper place in history, and in the appreci- 
ation of the American people, as the great figure he 
really was— a strong, massive, patriotic, fearless and 
controlling character in the settlement of the mighty 
questions that shook to their foundations the institu- 
tions of our Government. He will be remembered 
also for the purity of his life, for his domestic virtues, 
for his deeply religious nature, ever depending on 
Divine help, and for that love and zeal for humanity 
that made him brave social ostracism and sacrifice, if 
necessary, all chance of personal political preferment 
that he might champion the cause of the slave and 
break the power that held him in fetters. In the light 
of true history the consistency^ of his conduct will not 

52 



be determined by the record of his party affiliations, 
but by the constancy of his devotion to the cause that 
filled his heart and dominated all his political actions. 
Measured by that test, few men have run a straighter 
course or done more to merit a high place in the 
esteem of their countrymen. 



53 



r l|on. Jamps (B. Srttktns 

U. g". (Kirtnit ^nigp. Setlrrli 



May it Please the Court: 

I shall not attempt to gild refined gold. After the 
long service upon which we have attended, my 
address should properly be in the nature of a benedic- 
tion and of necessity brief. The able and exhaustive 
analysis of the life and character of Chief Justice 
Chase by the distinguished Senator from the State 
of Ohio renders useless further reference to the sub- 
ject ; but at the risk of imposing upon your patience, 
and of weakening by repetition the masterful por- 
traiture of the Chief Justice to which we have lis- 
tened, I cannot refrain from reference to a single act 
of his life which, in my judgment, indellibly stamped 
him a great man and a great Judge. 

As Secretary of the Treasury during the time of 
the Civil War, Mr. Chase was confronted with the 
great problem of National finance— of obtaining 
money to meet the necessarily enormous expenditures 
required for the successful prosecution of the war. 

54 



He devised the scheme of issuing the demand notes 
of the Government, making them a legal tender for 
all debts, public and private. He was the father of 
the greenback. Perhaps it is not too much to say 
that without such or similar scheme, the war could 
not have been prosecuted to successful conclusion; 
certainly not nearly so soon as it was. That scheme 
received the endorsement and approval of the people 
of the North, and was successful in an eminent 
degree. 

When Mr. Chase was transferred to the Supreme 
Court of the United States as its Chief Justice, the 
question was presented whether the legal tender 
clause of the act authorizing the greenback was con- 
stitutional, so far at least as it affected contracts 
entered into prior to its passage. Chief Justice Chase 
was called to pass upon the legality of his own act. 
Without impropriety he might have excused himself 
from assuming that task ; but with a lofty conception 
of duty unsurpassed, he approached the subject, 
clothed in the spotless ermine of clear judgment, hon- 
esty of thought, impartiality of intent, with every 
passion and every prejudice hushed in the solemn 
deliberation of the law. His intellectual honesty 
forced him to the conclusion that his own scheme, 
embodied by the Congress into statute law, so far as 
it made the greenback a legal tender as applied to 
contracts made before its passage, was unconstitu- 
tional and void. When subsequently the Court, 

55 



changed in its personnel, overruled the former deci- 
sion and held the act constitutional, the Chief Justice 
adhered to his previous ruling, writing the principal 
dissenting opinion. 

This action, in my judgment, exhibits markedly 
the greatness of the man, the purity of his thought, 
his intellectual honesty, the bravery of his soul. With 
every inducement to take no part in the decision, with 
every natural bias, with every prejudice impelling 
him to make legitimate the child of which he was the 
acknowledged father, he spurned the strong tempta- 
tion to justify himself, and clung fast to the constitu- 
tion as he read it. In all judicial history I know of 
no more signal devotion to duty, no more signal 
instance of loyalty to honesty of thought. The act 
shows the great judicial intellect, the great judge. 

Mr. Justice Clifford speaks of this act in the fol- 
lowing beautiful language : 

"From the first moment he drew the judicial robe 
around him he viewed all questions submitted to him 
as a Judge in the calm atmosphere of the bench, and 
with the deliberate consideration of one who feels 
that he is determining issues for the remote and 
unknown future of a great people. * * * Men find 
it easy to review others, but much more difficult to 
criticise and review their own acts ; and yet, it is the 
very summit to which the upright Judge should 
always be striving. Judges sometimes surrender 



56 



with reluctance a favorite opinion, even when con- 
demnation confronts it at every turn, and they find it 
well nigh impossible to yield it at all when it happens 
to harmonize with the popular voice, or if gilded with 
the rays of successful experiment. Judges and jurists 
may dissent from his final conclusion and hold, as a 
majority of the Court did, that he was right as Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, but every generous mind, it 
seems to me, should honor the candor and self control 
which inspired and induced such action. ' ' 

Well may the people rejoice when their Judges 
exercise such independence of thought and judgment, 
such purity of intent, such moral courage. So long 
as such qualities shall characterize the bench, so long 
will the liberty of the citizen be safe from all 
encroachment of arbitrary power; so long will con- 
stitutional right be maintained; so long will liberty 
be preserved; so long shall we have freedom, not 
license ; freedom regulated by constitutional law. 

Gentlemen of the Bar, you honor yourselves when 
you place upon the walls of this temple of justice the 
portraits of distinguished jurists who have given 
their lives to the sacred cause of justice. At the same 
time and by the act you render service to the State. 
These counterfeit presentments look down upon you 
as you labor here, seemingly to observ^e how you act 
your part ' ^ in the noble profession which is charged 
with the earthly administration of the justice of 

57 



God." They will prove an incentive to the intelli- 
gent discharge of duty, seemingly by their presence 
urging to nobler conception of right, to greater study, 
to unselfish labor in your profession. They will teach 
the lesson that in this commercial age needs to be 
impressed upon the minds of all of us, that there are 
some things in the world better than your gold or 
your silver ; that honor and truth and loyalty to duty 
are rather to be regarded ; that a good name is better 
than much riches. They will point the young lawyer to 
the goal to which he may attain if he correctly appre- 
hend the nature of his profession and is true to his 
ethics. They will teach him that the temple of fame 
wherein are enrolled the names of those who have 
faithfully ministered at the altar of justice and kept 
burning the lamp of truth, honor and truth and right 
are in high regard and may not be sacrificed to vulgar 
gain. They will incite him to dedicate his life to the 
maintenance of justice among men, that his name 
may be written upon the roll of honor of those who 
have faithfully served the State. They will impress 
all who shall enter this temple of justice with the 
dignity and the sacredness of the labor here per- 
formed, and will foster a more willing submission to 
law and higher respect for order ; and so, being dead, 
these Judges shall yet speak in defense of society, 
for the safety of the State, for the welfare of the 
people, for virtuous life and conduct, for the honor 



58 



and dignity of our noble profession, and their 
message to you shall be to advance yet higher the 
standard of professional honor and of professional 
attainments. 




59 



g>fat?BmattBi^tji mih PoUtirB 



Abirp0H bg Man. 3. iFrank i^anlg 

douemnr of Sn&iana 



May it Please the Court : 

To American ears these are familiar terms. 
Synonymous in their highest and best sense, they 
differ widely in the common acceptation of their 
meaning. In the popular mind there is indeed a 
wide difference between them. It is a far cry from 
the politician to the statesman. 

A statesman is said to be one versed in the art of 
government or who exhibits conspicuous ability and 
sagacity in the direction of public affairs. The term 
statesmanship refers to the qualifications, duties and 
employment of a statesman, or to the practice of the 
science of government. 

Politics is said to be the art of influencing public 
opinion, attracting and marshaling the voters, and 
obtaining and distributing public patronage as far 
as the possession of office may depend upon the politi- 
cal opinions or political services of individuals. In 

60 



the popular mind it is the art of guiding and influenc- 
ing the schemes and intrigues of political parties, or 
of cliques or individual politicians. In popular 
estimation a politician is one primarily devoted to 
his own advancement in public office, or to the success 
of a political party, or one addicted or attached to 
politics as managed by parties; a schemer, an in- 
triguer. 

Statesmanship may be defined as the science of 
government; politics as the science of exigencies. 
Statesmanship studies the public weal; politics, pri- 
vate advantage. Statesmanship is born of love of 
countrj^ ; politics, of meaner parentage. Statesman- 
ship is actuated by pure and lofty purposes ; politics, 
by low and sordid ones. Statesmanship is willing to 
champion an unpopular cause, if it be right, and is 
capable of great sacrifice in its behalf; politics joins 
only in popular acclamations, gives no concern to 
the merits of the issue and is incapable of sacrifice. 
Statesmanship exemplifies the power of a great con- 
viction ; politics, the cohesiveness of spoils and plun- 
der. Statesmanship directs the State into sane and 
safe ways, perpetuates its institutions, augments its 
power, adds to its prestige and fame and gives 
splendor to its glory; politics leads the State into 
dangerous and doubtful ways, undermines its insti- 
tutions, depletes its strength, detracts from its power 
and prestige, dims its fame and strips it of its splen- 
dor. 

61 



The statesman is ambitious for his country; the 
politician for himself. The statesman serves his 
countrymen, but his countrymen serve the politician. 
The statesman studies the present in the light of the 
past, that he may understand and interpret the future 
to his country's good. The ijolitician knows little 
of the past, and cares nothing whatever about the 
future, so long as he is permitted to batten on the 
present. Occasion itself is the child of the statesman, 
but it is the father of the politician. Statesmen are 
among the State's most valuable assets. Politicians 
are among its most dangerous liabilities. 

Statesmanship and politics in this country are so 
closely blended as to require keen discernment on the 
part of the people to distinguish between the art of 
the politician and the appeal of the statesman. In 
fact, statesmanship and politics meet and mingle in 
the deeds and lives of most public men. The politi- 
cian is rarely totally lacking in the elements of states- 
manship, and the statesman who possesses none of 
the meanness of politics is yet more rare. 

The lives of few public men more forcefully exem- 
plify this fact than does the life of Chief Justice 
Chase. In his campaign for the senatorship in 1849, 
for the presidency in 1856 and 1860, and especially 
in 1864 and 1868, he played the game of politics much 
as the politician plays it. In that role he was not 
himself, at least not his better self ; in fact, he was at 

62 



his worst. The impress of those days, made by his 
unfortunate campaign for the great office of the presi- 
dency, left something of a shadow upon an otherwise 
flawless fame. 

But Chase at his best was not a politician. He was 
a statesman ; a statesman, too, of constructive power, 
bold, skillful and sagacious. He possessed great and 
abiding convictions concerning freedom and the 
rights of men, and there never was an hour in his life 
when there was in him enough of the politician to 
cause him to surrender these convictions even for the 
presidency. As to these he never yielded nor compro- 
mised, nor did he ever shrink from moral responsi- 
bility in his public service. Honesty and indomitable 
persistence were always his. 

He was a statesman when as a young man, living 
in a pro-slavery community, he turned his back upon 
his own apparent interests and sacrificed, as he had a 
right to believe, a brilliant career to champion an 
unpopular cause and become the defender, in the 
courts, in the press and upon the stump, of a despised, 
enslaved and persecuted race. 

He was a statesman when at the peril of his own 
personal safety he stood for the freedom of speech 
and declared for the freedom of the press. He was a 
statesman when he saw and announced the fact that 
slavery and freedom of speech could not continue to 
exist in the same country and that the enslavement 

63 



of the black man endangered the freedom of the white 
man. He was a statesman when he battled against 
Douglas in the Senate of the United States for the 
freedom of the Territories. He was a statesman 
when in that debate he declared: "All men are cre- 
ated eqnal; they are endowed by their Creator with 
inalienable rights. Aggressions upon these rights 
are crimes." 

He was a statesman when amid the disasters of 
defeat, after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 
he wrote to the despairing friends of freedom this 
line from Milton : 

"Bate no jot 
Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
Right onward," 

He was a statesman when in February, 1861, he 
declared that the laws of the Union should be 
enforced at all hazards and against all opposition. 
He was a statesman when he put into the mouths of 
the friends of the Union, in the days of doubt and 
indecision, the battle cry: "Inauguration first, ad- 
justment afterward. ' ' He was a statesman when he 
piloted a confused and bewildered nation through the 
waters of monetary disaster into the harbor of finan- 
cial safety. He was a statesman when he gave to 
his country the basis of the present national banking 
system. He was a statesman when he foresaw and an- 
nounced the dangerous power of great corporations 
through the control of the country's transportation 

64 



facilities. He was a statesman when as Chief Justice, 
presiding over an unwilling Senate, he held it against 
its will to its proper character as a judicial body dur- 
ing the impeachment trial of President Johnson. He 
was a statesman when in the days of reconstruction 
he gave judicial sanction to the theory of an 'indis- 
soluble Union of indestructible States" and to the 
re-establishment of national authority throughout 
the South. 

Gentlemen of the Bar, you do well, therefore, when 
in memory and in appreciation of what he was to each 
of the three great departments of the Government- 
legislative, executive and judicial; of what he there 
stood for and of what he there did, you give this 
portrait to this most august tribunal ; and you, sirs, 
representatives of the great judicial system of which 
li was a conspicuous part, do well to accept this por- 
trait in memory and in appreciation of those attri- 
butes of heart and mind and character that made him 
^reat and gave him enduring fame. 



65 



Aaifptmtr^ of J^ortratt bg tl|f (Hantt 



"Slttiteh States SiBtrtrt Jniige 



The thanks of the Court are due and are hereby 
tendered to the members of the bar by whose 
generous action this excellent portrait has been pro- 
cured and presented to the Court. The occasion 
which brings us together is a significant one, and the 
portrait has a meaning far beyond its intrinsic value. 

The portraits presented to the Court in 1903, with 
simular interesting ceremonies, have taught us that 
there is a permanent and highly beneficial value to be 
attached to them. They create an atmosphere of his- 
torical interest and professional pride. They lead 
the younger attorneys to a further study of the 
characters which thus speak to us from the canvas. 

The Court, its officers, jurors and the public are 
alike affected by this wholesome influence, and many 
touching and eloquent allusion of counsel have been 
inspired thereby. 

66 



It is always beneficial to study the life of a great 
mau. To the profession it is specially valuable to 
study the achievements of one who as lawyer and 
publicist took so important a part in the discussion 
of the questions culminating in the Civil War; who 
as executive officer did so much to sustain the govern- 
ment during the war, and who as Chief Justice 
presided in that great tribunal whose decisions 
secured forever the results of the war. 

Gentlemen of the bar, a lasting service has been 
rendered to the Court by the gift of this portrait. 
The best expression we can make as showing our 
appreciation of that service has been voiced by our 
senior brother, Judge Jenkins. 

The distinguished lawyers and statesmen who have 
addressed the Court on this occasion have our most 
cordial thanks. Their able addresses deserve to be 
widely read, and to be preserved as a permanent 
addition to the judicial literature of the country. To 
our friends, the ladies and gentlemen who have done 
us the honor to be present, we express the hope that 
they share with us a keen enjoyment of these 
exercises, believing that what makes for the accomp- 
lishment of the highest standards in our judicial 
svstem inures to the benefit of every citizen. 



67 



Wvhn nf (Enurt 

Now, on this day the Court, having heard the 
motion of Hon. Charles S. Deneen on behalf of the 
attorneys of the district, and the Court having also 
heard the addresses in support of the motion by Hon. 
Joseph B. Foraker, Hon. J. Frank Hanly, and 
Hon. James G. Jenkins, it is therefore 

Ordered, That the portrait of Salmon Portland 
Chase be received into the custody of the Court, and 
that it have a permanent place upon the walls of this 
Court room, or any Court room hereafter to be 
occupied by this Court, and that the said addresses 
be spread at large upon the records of the Court. 



68 






















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